


NVQ - a  Matrix explained??

by The_Other_Timeless_Child



Series: Quiet Times [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25481191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Other_Timeless_Child/pseuds/The_Other_Timeless_Child
Summary: The Doctor tries to get Ryan some practical experience in fixing the TARDIS, but gets distracted in explaining what a Matrix is, more theoretical than practical.
Series: Quiet Times [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848016
Kudos: 10





	NVQ - a  Matrix explained??

**Author's Note:**

> Or how the Doctor realizes the Library is exactly like a Matrix, even down to its “guards dogs” with its own versions of wraiths / sliders....

INT. TARDIS - SUB-LEVEL BELOW THE CONSOLE.

THE DOCTOR and RYAN are surrounded by various cords and cables dangling, As though in mid repair. The Doctor walking around pointing out different things.

“I’m sorry Doctor, but I don’t think this is going to help me with my NVQs. We really don't have stone circuit boards on earth or dimensional engineering.” 

“All right, OK, I got this Ryan, think of it this way, the TARDIS Matrix is like a hard drive. But unlike a hard drive on your computer. This one is alive, very sentient, has a soul/consciousness.” Says the Doctor as she paces around the room. 

“Ours don’t have stone circuit boards, either.” Ryan interjects.

“I said think of them like stone circuit boards, they’re not exactly that.” the Doctor continues. “Now, ok…Your phone, so remember when I erased everything on your phone, but you got most of it back because it was saved in the cloud, right”. 

Ryan mutters, “Yea, most of it.”

“Right then, It’s sort of like that for TARDIS’s Matrix, she is connected to the central Matrix on Gallifrey where their experiences are constantly being uploaded”.

“But it’s not just TARDIS’s that get uploaded, when Timelords die, our minds are uploaded to the Matrix too. Like the Matrix here, it too is like a living computer. It can predict the future, generating prophecies out of algorithms. Ring the Cloister bells.” The doctor pauses. “Actually I don’t think your Earth computers can do that, yet.” 

Ryan pipes up, “I think you skipped a bit, what are the Cloisters exactly?”

The doctor starts gesturing, a box...“So umm, you could think of The Cloisters, as a case, that protects the Matrix, like a firewall, with an alert system, that can sound the event of impending catastrophe.” The Doctor explained. There are Cloister Wraiths, or Sliders as I prefer to call them, they act like the guard dogs.” 

Ryan nods, “But, what are the Wraiths actually?”

“Well, not to freak you out, but the Wraiths are apparitions of dead Time Lords whose minds have been uploaded to the Matrix, projections from inside the Matrix itself and you don’t want to be caught by them.” Still moving about The Doctor brushes against two hanging cables and they spark.

Ryan ducks, “What happens if you’re caught by them? And are there any here in this TARDIS’S Matrix?” as Ryan looks nervously around.

“So think of beings trying to invade the Matrix as viruses, And if you’re caught, then you get filed, like an antivirus software putting things in quarantine. And once you’re filed you could be...cleansed and used as a Slider to help with beef up security. The dead manning the battlements.” The doctor muses “I suppose in human terms that’s a bit morbid.”

“Ya think”, Ryan says. “What about it? Are there sliders here?”

The Doctor fidgets nervously “She doesn’t have sliders, per say, but can defend herself, if necessary.” 

Ryan wonders “You said yet, before, do humans ever make anything like this in the future?”

The Doctor with confidence, at first says, “No, Maybe, well Yes, but not exactly like this... Actually, it is sort of exactly like a Matrix, I mean it has got a firewall of guard dogs and everything. Even a Cloister Bell like system, a warning beacon to keep everybody away.

“What is it? You can’t mean it’s living with a soul and minds of the dead saved to it too, can you?” Ryan asks incredulously.

Stunned The Doctor sits down on a box, nudges more cables and they spark, “It’s a library Ryan, The Library.”

“Doctor, why would a library have guard dogs, libraries want people to go to them, don’t they or isn’t that a thing in the future?” Ryan asks.

The doctor responds absently not answering any of Ryan’s questions, “a non-Gallifreyan Time Lord like mind would never be allowed to be saved to the Matrix on Gallifrey. If I’m being honest, I’ve never wanted to be saved to their Matrix either, I don’t trust them.” 

“So what are you gonna do build yourself a place to save your consciousness to when you die?” Ryan wonders.

“No, Ryan, I don’t think I have to, The Lux Corporation, already built it, or will build it in the 50th Century. But, I might need to make some tweaks to make it Time Lord compatible, or maybe I already did, I just need to do them. Maybe I was there when they built it, I've never really looked into the construction of it.”

“You asked me something, Ryan. Oh The Library. Yes, this library was designed to have people that went there, but then the guard dogs woke up and the people had to be saved, to the hard drive. Like a test run, a proof of concept, 4022 people saved, lifetimes of individual experiences. But then the people had to be extracted, downloaded, no, rescued to make more room.”

Ryan sighs, “You’re being kind of confusing, can you start over from the top?”

The Doctor begins, “The Lux Foundation Library, known to most as just The Library, it is, will be, a planet-sized library that gets built during the 50th century.”

Shocked by the size, Ryan says, “Wow, that’s massive, why so large? Even now things are going digital.”

“Ryan this Library is so so special, It will contain a physical copy of every book ever written. At its heart is the Data Core, the largest hard drive ever designed to that date. Which serves not only as the index computer, but contains backup copies of every book ever written…. This planet has a moon, but not a regular moon, this moon has a duty of care, it has an antiviral subroutine to protect the Data Core below and its contents, This moon is called Doctor.” 

Ryan stands, “Hey!! Are you saying you’re gonna become a moon someday? That’s just proper weird.”.

“I don’t know, maybe, it’s been centuries since I checked on where the TARDIS is uploading her data to... The thing is Ryan, this Library, it wasn’t built just the house books, it was built by Felman Lux to embody his daughter Charlotte’s living mind in the heart of its computer network before her body died. So she could enjoy eternal life in virtual reality, with the Doctor Moon nurturing her spiritual and mental well-being. It was all very hush-hush, to the rest of the universe; it's just a library that is now closed, due to a Vashta Nerada infestation. The guard dogs I mentioned earlier. When they hatched, the computer sealed off the planet to quarantine it.”

Ryan in awe, “Wow, it really does have everything you said the Matrix has and does, firewalls, guard dogs, living minds of the dead, and is it sentient too like the Matrix?”

The Doctor sits stunned, “Ryan not only that, they have courtesy nodes, sculpted computer terminals containing real faces made from donated flesh; like the apparitions of dead Time Lords that walk the Cloister.”

The Doctor refocusing her attention on Ryan says. “It was 100 years before the Lux family could mount an expedition, to find out what happened to CAL, that’s where my younger self came in, it’s where I first met River, Professor Song. She ended up rescuing those 4022 people who were saved, in the process her friends died, but they were saved to the database via the WiFi, and I was able to upload her living mind directly to the database as well.” 

“Doctor?” Ryan asks confusedly “How can you first meet someone on the day they die, you’re not implying that you meet them afterwards?”

The Doctor looked around the room, “OK, we need to get this fixed up, then I’ll take you all home, I have a Library to get to and help build, it seems. And yes Ryan, when they’re a time traveler too, you can meet them afterwards. River’s a non-Gallifreyan born almost timelord, Saved to an almost Matrix, but I think all the same rules apply. She’s also my wife.”

Ryan stands, “Okay...You...Right, you know Doctor, we haven’t gotten very far on my NVQ, I could come with you, get some practical experience.”

The doctor jumps up and starts putting the room to right, “Oh, Ace!, Then after I can teach about the Architectural Reconfiguration System or the Eye of Harmony. It’s an exploding star, in the act of becoming a black hole. What you do is rip the star from its orbit, suspend it in a permanent state of decay…..”


End file.
